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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
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y name is Alia Ramsouer, and I am a Graphic Designer and Illustrator. A little background about my art: I have been drawing since I learned how to hold a pencil. I draw every second I can; coming up with new concepts and design is what I truely enjoy. I will gladly work with you on logos, apparel designs and even some cartoon characters!
Table of Contents
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
Page 6 Fonts Used
Page 8 Typographical Terms Page 10-17 Character Studies Page 18 Typographer Bio
Page 20 Logo Design Page 22 Ubiquitous Type Page 24-29 Sketchbook Page 30-39 Pop!
Fonts Used -6-
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
TT MOONS THIN DEMO Avenir Next Condensed Regular Avenir Next Regular Avenir Light Antipasto Regular Big Caslon Didto Regular Helvetica Neue Thin American Typewriter Regular Palatino Regular
Typographical terms
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
Blackletter
Also called Gothic. A style of handlettering popular in the fifteenth century.
D
rop Cap
Display letter that is set into text
Serif
The opening and closing cross-strokes in the letterforms of some typefaces.
Eygiptian Font Also called square serif. Typeface recognizable by its heavy, square serifs
Em - Dash
Slightly stronger than a hyphen and takes the place of the word “to” such as 1970 - 1990
Frac / tion In typesetting, a
single keystroke combination that builds customized fractions
Hairline Rule A fine line or rule, ¼point in thickness
T ra ck in g Used in digital typography to mean overall letterspacing
Display Type
Type used to attract attention, usually above 14 points in size.
Decorative Script fonts, fonts with extreme features such as swashes or exaggerated serifs, and any font designed to be used at larger than body copy sizes.
Lig(æ)ture Two or three characters joined as a single character
Didone
Characterized by extreme weight contrast between thicks and thins
Raised Cap
Larger letter than the start of the paragraph
Cursive
Early italics typefaces that resemble handwriting but with the letters disconnected.
Caligraphy
Elegant handwriting, or the art of producing such handwritting.
◗in❡ba✝s
Ornament, character, or spacer used in typesetting, often employes for the creation of box frames.
Wood Type Type made from wood. Used for larger display sizes more than 1 inch where the weight of the metal made casting impractical.
Distressed
Intentional flaws into letters have been introduced, to make any text appear old and weathered
Reversed
In printing, refers to type that drops out of the background and assumes the color of the paper.
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
er Studies
Character Studies | A
The History of the A
N
o one knows why ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet. Some think it’s because this letter represents one of the most common vowel sounds in ancient languages of the western hemisphere. Other sources argue against this theory because there were no vowel sounds in the Phoenician language. (The Phoenician alphabet is generally thought to be the basis of the one we use today.) Some say the Phoenicians chose the head of an ox to represent the ‘A’ sound (for the Phoenicians, this was actually a glottal stop). The ox was a common, important animal to the Phoenicians. It was their main power source for heavy work. Oxen plowed the fields, harvested crops, and hauled food to market. Some sources also claim that the ox was often the main course at meals. A symbol for the ox would have been an important communication tool for the Phoenicians. It somewhat naturally follows that an ox symbol would be the first letter of the alphabet.
The History of the Font: Didot The Didot family were active as designers for about 100 years in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were printers, publishers, typeface designers, inventors and intellectuals. Around 1800 the Didot family owned the most important print shop and font foundry in France. Pierre Didot, the printer, published a document with the typefaces of his brother, Firmin Didot, the typeface designer.
Character Studies | T
The History of the Letter T
F
our thousand years ago, just as today, people who could not write used a simple cross to sign letters and formal documents. In fact, the first name for this ancient symbol actually meant “mark” or “sign. One might logically assume that this common signature stand-in was the origin of our present X. But that’s not the case. Instead, what looked like an X to ancient writers eventually gave birth to the Roman T. How did that happen? Let’s go back to around 1000 B.C. During this time, the Phoenicians and other Semitic tribes used a variety of crossed forms to represent the letter they called “taw.” This letter, one of the first recorded, served two purposes: it represented the ‘t’ sound, and it provided a mark for signing documents that could be used by those who could not write their names.
About the Font: Big Caslon Big Caslon is a Caslon revival typeface designed by Matthew Carter and released through Font Bureau in 1994. It was the first display size version of Caslon available digitally. Due to its high contrast, Big Caslon is intended for use at size 18 point or higher.
Character Studies | &
The History of the Ampersand
The shape of the character (&) predates the word ampersand by more than 1,500 years. In the first century, Roman scribes wrote in cursive, so when they wrote the Latin word et which means “and” they linked the e and t. Over time the combined letters came to signify the word “and” in English as well. Certain versions of the ampersand, like that in the font Caslon, clearly reveal the origin of the shape. The word “ampersand”
came many years later when “&” was actually part of the English alphabet. In the early 1800s, school children reciting their ABCs concluded the alphabet with the &. It would have been confusing to say “X, Y, Z, and.” Rather, the students said, “and per se and.” “Per se” means “by itself,” so the students were essentially saying, “X, Y, Z, and by itself and.” Over time, “and per se and” was slurred together into the word we use today: ampersand.
About the Font: American Typewriter
The ITC American Typewriter™ typeface was released in 1974 to mark the 100th anniversary of the invention of the office typewriter – at a time when the machine was still the primary device for creating office communication. The design goal was to create a typeface that retained the unmistakable look of typewriter type, while overcoming its inherent flaws of marginalized legibility and poor readability in text settings. The long-term success of ITC
American Typewriter attests to the achievement of that goal. The design strikes a happy compromise with its office forerunner. It does away with the typewriter’s rigid spacing (which assigns the same amount of space to a lowercase “i” as it does to a capital “W”). And while the letterforms of ITC American Typewriter are clearly influenced by a typewriter font, they are far more legible and ultimately more readable than any standard typewriter output.
Character Studies | @
The History of the @
The origin of the symbol itself, one of the most graceful characters on the keyboard, is something of a mystery. One theory is that medieval monks, looking for shortcuts while copying manuscripts, converted the Latin word for “toward”—ad— to “a” with the back part of the “d” as a tail. Or it came from the French word for “at”—à—and scribes, striving for efficiency, swept the nib of the pen around the top and side. Or the symbol evolved from an abbreviation of “each at”— the “a” being encased by an “e.” The first documented use was in 1536, in a letter by Francesco Lapi, a Florentine merchant, who used @ to denote units of wine called amphorae, which were shipped in large clay jars.
About the Font: Palatino amed after 16th century Italian master of calligraphy Giambattista Palatino, Palatino is based on the humanist fonts of the Italian Renaissance, which mirror the letters formed by a broadnib pen; this gives a calligraphic grace. But where the Renaissance faces tend to use smaller letters with longer vertical lines (ascenders and descenders) with lighter strokes, Palatino has larger proportions, and is considered much easier to read.
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Typograp -20-
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
pher Bio
Tobias Frere-Jo
ones
Tobias Frere-Jones (born Tobias Edgar Mallory Jones; 1970) is an American type designer who works in New York City. He was formerly a partner with designer Jonathan Hoefler at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a type foundry in lower Manhattan. Frere-Jones teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program, with type designer Matthew Carter.
Logo Design -24-
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
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Ampersand Design Studi o
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Ubiquitous Type
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
Scrubby The 1970s: an age of wonder, optimism and Bookman Italic. Scrubby’s gratuitous swashes appear automatically in OpenType savvy applications. You can turn off swashes by disabling the OpenType standard ligatures feature or force them to appear using the OpenType swashes feature.
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
hure
M
y name is Alia Ramsouer, and I am a Graphic Designer and Illustrator. A little background about my art: I have been drawing since I learned how to hold a pencil. I draw everysecond I can; coming up with new concepts and design is what I truely enjoy. I will glad work with you on logos, apparel designs and even a cartoon characters!
Alia Ra Graphic
Alia Ramsouer Designs specializes in logo design, apperal design, and also character design. I strive to put the costumer first and make their ideas come to life!
1234 A Los An
www.a
(310)12
amsouer c Design
Avenue Ave. ngeles, CA, 90016
aramsouer.com
23-4567
Ampersand Design Studi o
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Character Studies -36-
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
MOMT Poster
MOMT Logo Design -38-
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
Personal Logo Design
POP! -40-
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
Week 1
pop! issue one volume seven visual project in this issue: andy warhol jasper johns larry rivers frank o’ hara roy lichenstein
Week 2
larry rivers
issue one
volume seven
pop! visual project
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
andy warhol jasper johns
in this issue:
roy lichenstein frank o’ hara
Week 3
issue one
pop! visual project volume seven
in this issue: andy warhol roy lichenstein jasper johns
frank o’ hara
larry rivers
Week 4 pop! visual project
jasper johns
issue one
volume seven
andy warhol
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography
in this issue: larry rivers
frank o’ hara
roy lichenstein
Week 5
pop!
visual project
in this issue:
volume seven
issue one
larry rivers
roy lichenstein
frank o’ hara andy warhol
jasper johns
issue one
Portfolio: The Art of Typography
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jasper johns
larry rivers
in this issue: andy warhol roy lichenstein
visual project volume seven
pop!
Week 6
Week 7
pop!
visual project
in this issue:
volume seven
issue one
larry rivers
roy lichenstein
frank o’ hara andy warhol
jasper johns
frank o’ hara
jasper johns
larry rivers
in this issue: andy warhol roy lichenstein
visual project volume seven
issue one
pop!
larry rivers
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visual project volume seven
jasper johns
in this issue: andy warhol roy lichenstein frank o’ hara
issue one pop!
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Week 9
pop!frank o’ hara in this issue: roy lichenstein
issue one andy warhol
visual project jasper johns
volume seven larry rivers
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Portfolio: The Art of Typography